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Animal, vegetable, or just mineral!? - UK, Isle of Sheppey, Minster


palaeochat647

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Hi all,
I'd be ever so grateful if someone could assist me in identify the attached photos (top, bottom and side views).

Location specimen found: UK, Isle of Sheppey, Minster, along the coast walking south east towards east end, near the shipwreck.

Collected: 18/08/2016
I've looked up London clay fossils finding various, similar looking structures, however it seems to me more than likely just rock/mineral formations but wasn't 100% sure, any help would be gratefully appreciated.
Many thanks

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post-22261-0-25924900-1471565676_thumb.jpg

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Welcome to the Forum !

In my opinion, it is a nice septarian nodule. http://www.jamesedwardhughes.com/fossil-hunting/category/septarian-nodule

" We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. "

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I guess Giant's Causeway would be a supersized septarian?

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Info: Craig Hyatt, retired software/electrical engineer

Experience: Beginner, fossil hunting less than a year

Location: Eagle Pass, TX USA on the border with Mexico, hot dry desert

Formation: Escondido, Marine, Upper Cretaceous

Materials: Sandstone, Mudstone, Shale, Chert, Chalk

Typical: Thalassinoides, Sphenodiscus, Exogyra, Inoceramus

Reference: http://txfossils.com/Txfossils.html

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Welcome to TFF!!

Hi all,
I'd be ever so grateful if someone could assist me in identify the attached photos (top, bottom and side views).

Location specimen found: UK, Isle of Sheppey, Minster, along the coast walking south east towards east end, near the shipwreck.

Collected: 18/08/2016
I've looked up London clay fossils finding various, similar looking structures, however it seems to me more than likely just rock/mineral formations but wasn't 100% sure, any help would be gratefully appreciated.
Many thanks

I would say it is a siltstone with mineralized veins, some on the exterior.

I guess Giant's Causeway would be a supersized septarian?

attachicon.gifimage.jpeg

The "giant's causeway"" is a basaltic lave deposit. Definitely not related to septarian nodules or this stone!!

Tony

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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  • 5 months later...

That is indeed a septarian nodule. Found quite commonly on Sheppey. Sometimes these nodules can contain some nice fossils. 

See my attached pictures for some examples that I have found on Sheppey over the past few years. 

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14 hours ago, jpc said:

nice crabs... but what is the middle picture?  

The middle picture is an unpreppared fish. The piece at the top that I am holding is the skull (a bit crushed), the arch on the left of the nodule is the scale detail following the back bone of the fish and the rest of the fish is still encased within the nodule. Would love to get it fully prepped but i neither have the time or tools at present to get it done and cannot afford to pay to have it done professionally. I have attached a few more pictures of it to show more of the detail.

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On 2/11/2017 at 5:04 AM, gremlinshow said:

 

That is indeed a septarian nodule.

 

Nice nodules but they are not septarian nodules and the original post is not one either.

Tony

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, ynot said:

Nice nodules but they are not septarian nodules and the original post is not one either.

Tony

Oh, if they are not septarian then what are they please?

 

I was making my statement based on this website http://www.sheppeyfossils.com/pages/calcareous_concretions.htm which is generally used as the go to website for this locale.

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9 minutes ago, gremlinshow said:

Oh, if they are not septarian then what are they please?

 

I was making my statement based on this website http://www.sheppeyfossils.com/pages/calcareous_concretions.htm which is generally used as the go to website for this locale.

Septarian concretions or septarian nodules, are concretions containing angular cavities or cracks, called "septaria". The word comes from the Latin word septum; "partition", and refers to the cracks/separations in this kind of rock.

 

A septarian nodule is a specific type of rock that has cracked and had the voids filled with mineral deposit. Many forms of nodules will contain fossils, but that does not make them a septarian. I have not seen a septarian with fossils in it.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concretion#Septarian_concretions

 

Tony

 

PS Your pieces are nodules, just not septarian.

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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16 minutes ago, ynot said:

Septarian concretions or septarian nodules, are concretions containing angular cavities or cracks, called "septaria". The word comes from the Latin word septum; "partition", and refers to the cracks/separations in this kind of rock.

 

A septarian nodule is a specific type of rock that has cracked and had the voids filled with mineral deposit. Many forms of nodules will contain fossils, but that does not make them a septarian. I have not seen a septarian with fossils in it.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concretion#Septarian_concretions

 

Tony

 

PS Your pieces are nodules, just not septarian.

 

I have found many septarian nodules in Kentucky that contain fossils, such as straight-shelled and coiled cephalopods. I also have found crinoids in the center of them as well.

 

But Tony is right, the nodule in this picture is not a septarian one, but just a normal sedimentary nodule.

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11 minutes ago, TNCollector said:

I have found many septarian nodules in Kentucky that contain fossils,

I would enjoy seeing these pieces!

Tony

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

My favorite thread on TFF.

 

 

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It makes me think of a limestone with patterns of dessication.

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"On ne voit bien que par le coeur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

"We only well see with the heart, the essential is invisible for the eyes."

 

In memory of Doren

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I agree that the original object is question is part of one of the so called septarian nodules commonly found on Sheppey; consistent with those shown on both sources provided earlier in the thread (http://www.sheppeyfossils.com/pages/calcareous_concretions.htm & http://www.jamesedwardhughes.com/fossil-hunting/category/septarian-nodule ).  Part of the calcite lined cavity can be seen on the broken edge in the 5th and 6th photos posted. Some of the other nodules shown later on may be phosphatic nodules.

 

The information below might be of interest; sourced from A Field Guide to the London Clay of Sheppey, Kent, available at: Link

 

"Phosphatisation - Trace fossils, probably crustacean burrows, are the most commonly encountered phosphatic fossil. Balson (1987) identified six phosphogenic episodes in the Tertiary. The first of these took place in late London Clay times, during the deposition of divisions B - D London Clay. He concluded that authigenic phosphate is deposited in sediments at the time of the maximum transgressive extent and where there is a rich and diverse biota. It is as a direct result of this episode that we have the wealth of phosphatised fossils. Crustacean carapaces, usually cast, burrow systems and large vertebrates act as a nuclei for authigenic phosphate concretions although any nucleus would do. The surface of most of the nodules is soft and can be prepared away to expose superbly preserved fossil remains. Although not directly phosphatised, the unusually fine preservation of the isolated sharks' teeth and fish bones is also due to the high levels of non-biogenic phosphate.

 

Septarian nodules and cement stones - Septaria, so-called because they enclose calcite lined cavities, and cement stones occur in known horizons in the cliff and foreshore. They can be individually identified and are used for local correlation (King 1984). Trace fossils, usually in very fine detail, and sometimes bivalves are preserved on their surfaces. Drifted logs are often encased in cement stone."

 

Regards,

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